Give Them A Choice – Meeting the needs of a diverse shopper base.

This is an excerpt of an article by Rich Mitchell originally appeared on Storebrands.com

Oils and vinegars continue to grow in popularity, and many retailers boast multiple own-brand tiers in this segment. But they’ve recently run into a couple of sourcing snags, at least on the olive oil side.

Olive oil product shortages — attributed to a wet summer and the resulting prevalence of fungus affecting olive trees in Italy and Spain — contributed to an average unit price increase of 6 percent in 2015, leading to a 3 percent volume decline, reports Euromonitor International, a London-based market research firm, in its October 2015 “Oils and Fats in the US” report.

The shortage is causing many producers that traditionally source their products from Italy and Spain to seek out other olive-producing regions such as Greece, Euromonitor notes.

In addition, allegations that some producers are mislabeling products — including designating some items as extra virgin olive oil when the selections do not meet the international standards for such a classification and misstating the countries of origin — threaten to alienate shoppers and further impede sales.

While retailers have little control over the ramifications of such incidents, most still have the capacity to boost their private label oil and vinegar activity.

In the article there are some very interesting insights regarding this topics: